Emma Stone on a roll

‘The Help’ adds to young actress’ impressive resume

Credit: Dale Robinette

Emma Stone caps a remarkable summer with her starring role in “The Help.”

Less than a year since she was “discovered” with “Easy A,” the 22-year-old boasts no fewer than three new movies.

In “Friends with Benefits,” Stone scored with a cameo as the woman who dumps Justin Timberlake.

There’s her current role as a law student in “Crazy, Stupid, Love” opposite Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell.

“Help” casts Stone as “Skeeter” Phelan, the aspiring Southern writer in early 1960s Mississippi who propels this comic drama about interracial friendship and civil rights.

Starring in the film version of Kathryn Stockett’s surprise hit novel brought its own kind of stress, Stone said while on a recent Boston visit.

“This was my first time doing a movie adapted from a book, so it’s an odd feeling of responsibility. You meet people and tell them you’re doing ‘The Help’ and they know the character. My mom, my grandmother even, had a million opinions and ideas.”

It’s not surprising so many know the character — Stockett’s book spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Skeeter, freshly graduated from Ole Miss and eager to be published, decides to write a book that will tell the stories of the town’s maids — from their point of view.

It’s a dangerous venture in the era’s segregated South.

“I don’t know that Skeeter’s a rebel,’’ Stone said. “She just has a modern mentality in a world that’s a little bit behind.

“Now, 50 years later, I can say, ‘I’m 22 and focused on my work,’ and people don’t say, ‘Oh, you’re not married!’ and ‘You don’t have two kids, that’s so sad.’ So I can relate to that.

“But she does want to fit in. Why else does she go to those damn Junior League meetings! She just happens to be a little bit different.”

Skeeter, Stone added, “is in no way a martyr or revolutionary. Her entrance into this world is ultimately self-serving: she wants to be published.

“But it’s these women, the domestic workers, who make this happen with these stories. She’s not saving them, they’re saving her. She would be sitting with a stack of blank pages if not for them.”